Refuge from the Cold
by Protectress of Dalidon
Summary: Everyone needs an escape from reality, even if they are from a dream world. Please R&R, stand alone piece, all comment welcome.


I felt taller, stronger, faster, braver, free, than I had in weeks. Taking a deep breath I moved forward softly, the air clean, clear and crisp as the sun shone gently down. The mare pricked her ears as I asked for a trot over the soft green grass. Her strides were as fluid as silk, as air itself. Her cream mane brushed against my fingers as I leant forward, urging her faster, into a canter, into a slow gallop. Wind blowing in my face I revelled in the sensation. It's strange, I know that I can never have this, not as often as I want or need, that people want to teach me to be able to do things automatically, without feeling I've made a step forward. I know they can't understand why I have to have this hour, two or more if I can get it, at the very least once a month to keep the smile on my face and courage in my heart. But they never had what I had, never lost that the way I did. I slow her down, leaning back, gently touching the reins, the word soft on my lips. The end is near and I want to have a jump or two before I have to leave. She pops over the poles without a moment of hesitation, she can go so much higher, the mare of cream, but I can't, not yet. Maybe next time I'll spend my time jumping after the warm up, have an instructor even. Taking her at a walk to cool her down, dry the sweat on her beautiful coat, I look around me. There is forest on one side, the trees cooling the ground beneath them when the summer sun tries to bake the earth. On the other is open, rolling hills and flats to race over, a sand arena to have lessons in, a round yard to learn body language of one who isn't human. Like any responsible horse owner I unsaddle the mare, taking out the grooming kit to rid her of the evidence of our time together. She whickered softly and I looked up, the man walked towards me, his black coat and glasses flashing the sunlight back at me. He was frowning and I knew why, my sunglasses were sitting on the fencepost with my phone, coat slung over the railing.

"What if we needed to contact you?"

"You would have ridden." I walked in stride with the mare who would now go back to her herd that stood on the edge of the scrub. A black called to her, she touched her nose to my shoulder and I gave her a final rub before she trotted away to go back to her kind, as I went to mine.

"We have to go."

"I know." I let my light hair slide free of the band that had held it, slipping it over my wrist. I had gathered the missing articles as I joined him, the coat settling on my shoulders, glasses shielding my eyes from the sunlight, phone in my pocket.

"The captain wants to see you."

"I know. This is going to end isn't it." It was a statement. The time had been coming, like the end of this, and I had been able to see it, but not prevent or divert it.

"You're being reassigned…"

"After we get back."

"They want to know why."

"They know why."

"They want to understand."

"They can't."

"Do you wish…"

"I had taken the blue pill? No. I just need this."

"I know."

"We all need something."

"Why not someone?"

"People unreliable, I know where I stand here."

"Is that why you won't accept downloads?"

"Yes." We walked in silence after that, the breeze keeping my hair behind my shoulders. He spoke into his black phone and I closed my eyes, waiting to feel the cool hand on my shoulder to tell me I can open them again. I see his face, his real face. I see the cold, metal world I have chosen and for a moment I want to run, close my eyes and go back, not to the world I had known, to where I had been moments before. Setting my feet quietly on the floor I walk to my room. That is part of it too, part of my ritual. No one follows for some time. I sit, the mattress beneath me is hard and uncomfortable compared to the saddle I had been in, the world dark and lonely. Resting my head against the unforgiving metal I wait. It's always someone different that comes, the one from the last time so unnerved they cannot see my face like this again for some months. This time it's him. He is carrying a tray.

"Here's something to eat and drink. I know you don't want to, but you'll waste away." I meet his eyes with mine, their coldness reflected back at me in his shock.

"Tell them I'll be alright in the morning."

"You always are." He leant in, raising a hand to my cheek slowly, as he had seen me do with the mare. Softly his fingers ran over my dead skin, bringing back sensation slowly. I said nothing and after a moment he left, the door closing and locking out the meaningless noises of the ship. I had been so young when I had accepted this world, so young inside that I never questioned it once I thought I had the answers. But now the questions ate me up inside, making a hole that never seemed filled unless I was in that world away from here and there. It was a hole the shape of a man on a horse, leading the mare for me. It was a hole only he could fill, but he didn't want to. I had come here as Zanna, as a Woman if the meaning of my name was right. It had been wrong until now. Now that I knew all the cold could do to someone I was worthy of my name. Tomorrow I would be worthy of my name. Tomorrow when I could go back to what I had become, the Woman of Ice, not of Golden Wings as I had arrived. Taking a small breath I spoke.

"The cold has clipped my wings of gold and now it holds me in its embrace. But I do not resent it, I cannot resent the thing that keeps me alive. One day you will understand, but it shall be another who teaches you, not I." I stayed like that, looking at the wall opposite my bed, for I know not how long. But when the lights flickered, held and showed me the imperfections around me, I was what I had been before, I was what they knew.

"We arrive in Zion in an hour." My captain said quietly. I nodded, moving to my post unspeaking. Someone said a greeting as they passed and I flashed them a smile as bright as the sun and returned their words. That was what I was. I smiled and laughed and was a part of the crew for every day bar one a month. The longer it was the worse I got and they knew it as I knew their idiosyncrasies. They would put yesterday from their minds. He came up to me as I sat at the small cold table.

"We're getting ready to dock." I merely nodded, silently raising the goop to my lips. It reminds me of a mash I made for a sick horse once, but this is cold, not warm as the other had been. I feel it slide down my throat, coating the barrier between one me and the other. The one they knew, the one on the outside, throws her arms around members from other ships that have been unseen for so long I have forgotten their faces. The one on the inside watches, wrapped in the cold that keeps me breathing, in the darkness of my clipped wings. That is the one who needs the mare, that time once a month. And that is the one they cannot stand to see because it scares them. The seekers of truth are afraid of the cold.


End file.
